Mark Krikorian, MD Del. Nic Kipke, and Steve Moore joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C Trump again criticizes Justice Dept., calls response to congressional requests ‘embarrassment to our country!’ (Washington Post) — President Trump again criticized the Justice Department on Monday, saying the agency’s production of documents to Congress is an “embarrassment to our country!” Trump made the statement after tweeting about unrelated topics — including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the news media and Amazon. “So sad that the Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI are slow walking, or even not giving, the unredacted documents requested by Congress,” Trump wrote, putting “Justice” in quotation marks. “An embarrassment to our country!” The president probably was referencing a brewing controversy over a request from the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee for documents related to some of the Justice Department’s most controversial investigations and decisions. The chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), issued a subpoena to the department last month, claiming that officials were taking too long to turn over the materials he requested. Goodlatte and other lawmakers have been seeking documents about the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and the firing of Andrew McCabe from the FBI.

5am – D         Immigration News:

• Trump pushes Republicans to use ‘nuclear option’ on border (WTOP) — Trump administration officials said Monday they’re crafting a new legislative package aimed at closing immigration “loopholes,” hours after the president called on Republicans in Congress to immediately pass a border bill using the “Nuclear Option if necessary” to muscle it through. “Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!” President Donald Trump wrote in a series of sometimes-misleading tweets, fired off after returning from a holiday weekend spent in Florida with several immigration hardliners. Trump also declared protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants “dead,” claimed the U.S. has “no effective border laws” and warned Mexico to halt the passage of “caravans” of illegal immigrants or risk retribution.
• Trump administration, seeking to speed deportations, plans to impose quotas on immigration judges (Washington Post) — The Trump administration will pressure U.S. immigration judges to process cases faster by establishing a quota system tied to their annual performance reviews, according to new Justice Department directives. The judges will be expected to clear at least 700 cases a year to receive a “satisfactory” performance rating, a standard that their union called an “unprecedented” step that risks undermining judicial independence and opens the courts to potential challenges. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has promised to stiffen immigration enforcement partly by moving more aggressively to clear a backlog of more than 600,000 cases pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the federal court system that adjudicates immigration cases. Some immigrants facing deportation wait years for a court date, but they are typically authorized to work in the United States to support themselves during that time, an arrangement that critics view as an incentive to illegal immigration.

5am – E         ALZHEIMER CENTER OPENS THAT LOOKS LIKE THE 1950S (Daily Mail) — Welcome to time travel town! Inside the faux 1950s downtown complete with ’59 Thunderbird, diner and barbershop that’s the first daycare center of its kind in the US to help dementia patients remember their youth. Glenner Town Square is an Alzheimer’s day care center in San Diego, California, and will open this month. The facility, which was built inside a warehouse, is designed like a town in the 1950s, with a diner, a movie theater and a barber shop, among other storefronts and event spaces. The design is meant to utilize reminiscence therapy in an immersive environment by reminding dementia and Alzheimer’s patients of their strongest memories, which are formed from their teens to mid-30s. Reminiscence therapy has been shown to reduce agitation and improve mood and sleep quality in Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. When patients, or participants, arrive at Town Square, they will be arranged in groups of five with one direct care staff and the group will follow a track that goes through several of the 14 storefronts. Groups, which will be organized by functioning levels and similar interests, will spend about 45-50 minutes at each storefront for specific programming related to their location. Town Square is still waiting to get their certificate of occupancy, which CEO Scott Tarde says will happen before the end of April, about two and a half years after the idea for the facility was conceived in 2015

6am – A/B/C Should I be Illegal for employers to ask about salary history?

• It Could Become Illegal For Maryland Employers To Ask About Salary History (WAMU) — It’s a question that many job applicants fear: “What is your current or prior salary?” But if a bill in Maryland’s legislature becomes law, many employers would be banned from asking that question. Michelle Siri says prohibiting companies from inquiring about earnings history would be a boon for women, who earn less money than men who perform the same job, research has shown. When wage or salary offers are based on past earnings, Siri says, women can get trapped in a cycle of pay discrimination. “We think salaries should be based on market values,” says Siri, executive director of the Maryland Women’s Law Center. “They should be based on what the value of that position is to an employer, and they shouldn’t be variable depending upon who the applicant happens to be.” Siri’s organization supports the proposal, which is making its way through Maryland’s legislature for the second time, after a similar bill failed to make it out of a Senate committee last year. If it becomes law, it would only apply to employers with 15 or more employees. Asking about wage history is already illegal in California, Delaware and New York City, among other jurisdictions.

6am – D         Villanova Wins NCAA Championship!

• Villanova defeats Michigan 79-62 (CBS Sports) — The college basketball season is over. Villanova defeated Michigan on Monday night, 79-62, en route to its second national championship in three seasons. The Wildcats overcame a 7-point first half deficit to bury the Wolverines, building a lead that ballooned to as many as 22 in the closing minutes to comfortably cut down the nets in the Alamo City. Player of the Year frontrunner Jalen Brunson finished with only 9 points, but the Wildcats squeezed a surprise career-high 31 from Donte DiVincenzo, who took home MOP honors in convincing fashion. “He’s worked so hard to make himself the best player he can be every day,” Brunson said. “Honestly, this is nothing special — excuse me, this is very special, this is nothing surprising for us. We’ve seen Donte do this multiple times this year.” Paid content by Workday Davis Love III shares a teaching moment. A finance and HR system from Workday gives you the truth. And that sounds pretty great. Dynasty talk will soon commence about college basketball’s best team, and with good reason. Jay Wright has turned his program into more than a Big East contender — but a national power that has proven it is here to stay.
• Philly to host parade for Villanova after NCAA championship win (Philly.com) — For the second time in three years, Villanova will parade through Philadelphia after a dominating 79-62 victory over Michigan in the NCAA Championship game Monday night. A city spokeswoman confirmed that Philadelphia would hold a parade for Villanova following the team’s third NCAA championship. Details about when and where the parade would take place will be shared later Tuesday. Following Villanova’s dramatic 2016 NCAA championship victory over North Carolina, the city held a short parade down Market Street, from 20th Street to Dilworth Plaza. The parade, which took place the Friday after the game, cost an estimated $22,000, with the university picking up the tab for police, EMS staffing and post-parade cleanup. An estimated 60,000 people turned out for Villanova’s 2016 championship pride, a turnout that surprised head coach Jay Wright. “When we saw this here at City Hall, we were shocked,” Wright said following the parade. “I don’t think I ever thought an entire city would get behind a college team like this. We’re very humbled. We really thank the city of Philadelphia for this — this is amazing.” The city also hosted a parade following Villanova’s 1985 NCAA championship win over Georgetown, one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history

6am – E         Trump invited Putin to meet at the White House:

• Trump floated White House meeting with Putin
• Kremlin: Trump invited Putin to White House, but no date set
• Trump floated a Putin visit to the White House in a March 20 phone call

6am – F         Laura Ingraham / Parkland News:

• Fox News decries ‘intimidation,’ affirms support for Ingraham (The Hill) — Fox News on Monday gave a show of support to host Laura Ingraham, who lost several advertisers after she was critical of a Parkland, Fla, shooting survivor on Twitter. “We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts,” Jack Abernethy, co-president of Fox News, told The Los Angeles Times. “We look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday when she returns from spring vacation with her children,” he added. Ingraham announced last Friday that she was taking a pre-planned vacation and would not host the show this week. She has taken criticism for mocking David Hogg of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for getting rejected by colleges.
• Stoneman Douglas students must now use clear backpacks (New York Post) — The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida returned to campus Monday after their spring break, as a slew of new security measures took effect — including a rule requiring clear backpacks. The backpacks, according to the Sun Sentinel, were donated to the Parkland school’s student body of 3,200 free of charge. The updated attempt from Broward County school officials to strengthen security and make it more difficult for people to smuggle weapons onto campus came more than a month after the massacre that killed 17 people there. Confessed gunman Nikolas Cruz told investigators he “brought additional loaded magazines to the school campus and kept them hidden in a backpack until he got on campus to begin his assault,” the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said. He also was able to hide his AR-15 in a bag, officials added

7am – A         INTERVIEW – MARK KRIKORIAN –  a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues, has served as Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) – discussed the various options President Trump has to deal with the Central American Migrant Caravan and the latest Immigration News

• President Donald Trump at Egg Roll: Democrats Let DACA Down, ‘It’s a Shame’

• Migrant caravan raising concerns in US takes break in Mexico
• President Trump is calling for border legislation using the “Nuclear Option if necessary” to muscle it through the Senate

7am – B         JILL MCCABE WRITES FIERY OP-ED DEFENDING HER HUSBAND

• Jill McCabe responds to husband’s firing: Attacks on our family ‘false and utterly absurd’ (The Hill) — Jill McCabe, the wife of ex-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, broke her silence Monday on the events surrounding her husband’s firing and the claims that her political campaign influenced his decision making. In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Jill McCabe argued that President Trump and others spread “destructive lies” to “vilify” her and her husband in the months leading up to his dismissal. She wrote that she was recruited to campaign for state office in Virginia in 2014 on a platform of Medicaid expansion, and that she was conscious of her husband’s role when deciding whether to run. “To have my personal reputation and integrity and those of my family attacked this way is beyond horrible. It feels awful every day. It keeps me up nights,” McCabe wrote. “I made the decision to run for office because I was trying to help people,” she continued. “Instead, it turned into something that was used to attack our family, my husband’s career and the entire FBI.” Trump and other Republicans honed in on McCabe over what they deemed a conflict of interest. Jill McCabe accepted almost $500,000 in donations to her campaign for state office from a group affiliated with then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who is a close ally of the Clintons.
• Jill McCabe: The president attacked my reputation. It’s time to set the record straight. (Washington Post) — I am an emergency room pediatrician and an accidental politician — someone who never thought much about politics until I was recruited to run for state office after making a statement about the importance of expanding Medicaid. That decision — plus some twisted reporting and presidential tweets — ended up costing my husband, Andrew, his job and our family a significant portion of his pension my husband had worked hard for over 21 years of federal service. For the past year and a half of this nightmare, I have not been free to speak out about what happened. Now that Andrew has been fired, I am. Andrew and I met as sophomores in college, at Duke University. He was interested in law (eventually law enforcement), I in medicine (eventually pediatrics). Andrew’s a reliable Republican; I have voted, over time, for both Republicans and Democrats. As we have raised our children, I tried to vote more regularly and pay more attention to the issues that affect our community. And with my work in a hospital emergency room in Virginia, I saw the impact of how government decisions hurt my patients, especially when the state decided not to accept the federal government’s funding to expand Medicaid. I was providing care in the most expensive setting — the emergency room — and only once a patient’s condition became more serious, because he or she had no other options. In addition, our state’s decision was increasing the cost of health care for everyone, ultimately raising prices, premiums and taxes, while thousands of patients suffered. The whole thing just made no sense.

7am – C         Trump supporter attacked by 2 women at DC restaurant, police say (Fox News) — A woman was assaulted at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., for supporting President Donald Trump, police said Monday, releasing images of the incident as they try to track down the suspects. Cops are looking for two women who allegedly attacked the woman around 1 a.m. on March 16 outside the Surfside restaurant in Northwest D.C. The victim reported to police, according to Fox 5, that she was involved in a conversation between the two women and a man who was with them, and stated, “I support Donald Trump.” The victim said she took herself to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, for treatment of her injuries, according to police. A silent, 43-second surveillance video clip from police, according to WRC-TV, showed a woman wearing a white jacket and crop top lunging toward a person off-camera who appeared to be recording her. The woman apparently tried to snatch the camera as the video image shook. The surveillance footage also showed the woman in the white jacket and a woman in a black jacket standing in line at the restaurant, alongside a man wearing a tie, according to WRC. Anyone who can identify the women in the video or who has knowledge of the assault is asked to call police. A reward of as much as $1,000 has been offered.

7am – D         White House Easter Egg Roll:

• 30,000 attend White House Easter Eggroll 2018

• Trump brags about military strength while speaking alongside Easter Bunny at children’s event

• Jim Acosta Yelled At Trump While He Was Coloring With Children At White House Easter Egg Roll

• President Donald Trump at Egg Roll: Democrats Let DACA Down, ‘It’s a Shame’
• Critics Attack Sarah Huckabee Sanders For Reading The Resurrection Story At Easter Egg Roll

7am – E         EPA says it will ease emissions standards for cars and trucks:

Administrator Pruitt @EPAScottPruitt

The previous administration’s determination was wrong. Obama’s EPA cut the Midterm Evaluation process short with politically charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn’t comport with reality & set the standards too high

Administrator Pruitt @EPAScottPruitt

Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean 1 state can dictate standards for the rest of the country. @EPA will set a nat’l standard for GHG emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars ppl want & can afford, while still expanding environmental & safety benefits of newer cars.

EPA boss Pruitt kills Obama-era fuel economy standards. (CNET) — The head of the EPA is now poised for a battle with California over its right to set its own climate regulations. Environmental Protection Agency boss Scott Pruitt announced on Monday that the EPA would be throwing out the Obama-era 50 mpg corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) targets for 2022 through 2025, calling them “too high.” This change in standards has set the stage for a massive showdown between the federal government, automakers and the state of California over whether there will be one federal standard or if things will go back to California imposing its own, stricter standard, as it did on vehicle emissions decades ago. California’s right to set its own regulations for emissions is unique among states and is made possible by a waiver granted by the EPA. Pruitt is looking into the possibility of revoking California’s waiver despite being a proponent of states’ rights to self-regulate. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is ready to sue the EPA on behalf of the state.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MD Delegate NIC KIPKE – House Republican Leader, Maryland General Assembly and Minority Leader in the MD House of Delegates – discussed what is left on the legislative agenda for the remainder of the Maryland General Assembly, the possibility of decreasing state taxes, and the proposal to make it illegal for employers to ask prospective employees about salary history

• Guns, taxes, Obamacare fix: Maryland General Assembly has much to resolve in final week (The Baltimore Sun) — Maryland state lawmakers have just a week left to resolve some of the costliest and most controversial problems of the year: shoring up Obamacare, alleviating an expected rise in income taxes, expanding the medical marijuana industry and bolstering school safety. If compromises aren’t reached by April 9, state residents could pay tens of millions more in taxes next year, the individual insurance market could collapse, minority-owned firms could remain shut out of the lucrative marijuana industry and Maryland would have missed the opportunity to respond to public outrage over school shootings. Democratic leaders say they’re hopeful Maryland’s 188 lawmakers can agree on solutions, especially since the election year stakes are so high.

8am – B         Tucker Takes On Guest Over Illegal Immigration And Mexico (Daily Caller) — Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went head-to-head with Enrique Morones, founder of the pro-immigration group “Border Angels,” on Monday — and the results were explosive. “I mean, I know you’re from San Diego and your racism and ignorance is very well known,” Morones said. “The Mexican government has given instructions to people, I’ve seen it with my own eyes — on how to get across the border,” The Daily Caller co-founder said. “But the point is — hold on, this group of people, could be stopped any time by the Mexican government, which again, you feel the need to make apologies for,” Carlson continued. “But they detain people all the time in their country from Central America, as you know. But they’re not detaining these people because they say they’re going to El Norte. So, they’re a hostile power. But why should we have to accept anybody who comes here?” “Most people aren’t coming to the United States,” Morones said. “Most undocumented people go elsewhere, they have no desire to come here. Of the 250 million undocumented people in the world today, the United States has 11 million, and that flow has shifted dramatically — it dropped 40 percent in the last five and a half years.” Carlson continued to push Morones on why the U.S. should accept any illegal immigrants. After more back and forth, Tucker dropped a bomb. “So our sins are the reason — so you hate America is what you’re saying.” “It’s interesting, you’re blaming America for illegal immigration into America,” he added.

8am – C         Louise Linton is starring in a rom-com. (Washington Post) — Louise Linton, the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, might be best known these days as a stiletto-wearing, SoulCycling meme who keeps trying to rehab her image with a series of profiles. But guys, she’s an actress who has appeared in “CSI: NY” and “Cabin Fever,” and she’s currently hard at work on a “rom-com,” as she reminded us in her latest profile, this one in Washingtonian magazine. So, let’s find out more about this upcoming film, shall we? Seems Linton is revisiting a movie filmed in Milwaukee in 2013 titled “Serial Daters Anonymous,” in which she stars as a “witty, driven fashion columnist” who leaves her would-be husband at the altar after he reveals that he cheated on her. She becomes a dating blogger who dishes on the terrible men she meets in some sort of revenge-against-dudes ploy. At least that’s what we gleaned from the trailer, which features a scene of Linton in a wedding gown getting the shocking news from the almost-husband, followed by a montage of breakup scenes and bad dates. “Where are you going to live?” the jilted husband asks. “Baghdad,” she answers. “Possibly the Sudan, maybe the Democratic Republic of Congo — I hear the guys are really nice there.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – STEVE MOORE – Economist, Heritage Foundation – discussed Tariffs with China, Free Trade vs. Fair Trade, and President Trump’s criticism of Amazon

• China hits U.S. goods with tariffs as ‘sparks’ of trade war fly.
• Trump, Kudlow to meet after China announces tariffs.
• Dow plunges 700 points as Trump picks on Amazon and trade-war fears return
• Trump rips Amazon for forcing closure of stores ‘all over the country’

8am – E         ‘Condom snorting challenge’ is the latest dangerous trend to go viral on the internet (WNEM) — The internet has seen the “Tide Pod challenge” and the “cinnamon challenge,” but the most recent online challenge is dangerous, and perhaps, the most disturbing of them all. Videos posted on social media show people unwrapping a condom from the packaging, snorting it up one nostril, and then attempting to pull it through the pharynx and out of the mouth. The challenge has been around for several years, but it is becoming popular again as people, mainly younger adults and teens, search for stupid trends to do during boredom that will go viral on the internet. It’s dangerous because the condom could easily get stuck in the nose and throat, blocking breathing and causing the challenger to choke. “The nose is connected to the back of the mouth – it’s also connected to the airwaves. There’s every possibility something you push up your nose will end up in your windpipe, or in your lungs. With potentially fatal results,” Dr. Carol Cooper told United Kingdom news company The Sun. In many of the videos, you can see pain on the faces of those who take part in the “condom snorting challenge.”